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These are the liner notes I submitted for the upcoming Small Stars
CD, due to be released March 17, 2005. The piece is signed under one of
my pseudonyms- Rocky Magenstein. To put it mildly, I was skeptical when my old high school runnin' buddy from lesser North Texas, Richard Steele, told me that he'd hooked-up as guitar player for the likes of Reno's anarcho-crooner Guy Fantasy and Berkeley's infamous professor-cum-pharmacist-cum-psychologist-cum bass player Godfrey McCambridge. Well, it was more like, concerned. Okay, I was alarmed, or at the very least a little freaked for my friend's psychological, financial, and most of all, pharmacological welfare. You see, Dick has issues. He's never really been comfortable with the fact that he is the sole heir of a cattle ranching empire with more money than a Pentateuch of Beverly Hills Synagogues. In fact, he's always done his best to "lose the farm," so to speak, through gambling, intentionally unwise investments, and even less wise marriages, only to find out, much to his dismay, that he still has many more left to lose. In short, my old friend's greatest misfortune has been his family's fortune. After finding out that he had attached himself to these two extremely fast livers (in the "life" sense and the bodily organ sense, too), I kept having visions of him passed-out drunk and dusty in the desert somewhere in Nevada, his maroon paisley smoking jacket tattered and torn, his trademark gray Stetson hanging crumpled from some exotic flora. Like everything ol' Steele does, the vision was stylish, but fatal nonetheless. I thought for certain he was well on his way to Janis Joplin/Jim Morrison land. At least his family would have the money to give him a proper and permanent resting place in Pere Lachaise. After numerous invites from Mr. Steele, I finally flew down to Austin to shut him up and get a glimpse of this new band, the Small Stars. I was shocked by what I saw. Instead of staring at a dead man, I was looking at a new man. In fact, it wasn't just Steele who was glowing in the limelight of enormous potential, but Fantasy and McCambridge themselves. They seemed to have cast aside their checkered pasts and burnout status to form a group of musicians not only determined to make a band work, but make it work on a big scale- i.e. they were finally gonna make it big time for their music and not their chemically-induced exploits. Sure, the chemicals are still there. They're just not getting in the way of the music. If anything, despite the notions of Nancy Reagan, the recreational substances may well be making a positive contribution to the act. But that's all conjecture. If there are positive contributions to the Small Stars, they are without a doubt coming in large doses from the likes of Mexican Saxophonist Buddy Llamas whose dedication to the band compels him to bicycle from Mexico City to Austin in his best suit and cowboy boots every week for the band's gigs (Please note that Llamas is my hero. I've begun emulating him by bicycling around lower Manhattan in my Red Wing Pecos kickers.); DEA agent/keyboard player Max Dolby who joined the band in the Reno Airport rather than bust them on drug charges; and five-time Australian Surfing Champion/drummer Brick Masterson who is still waiting for the Polar Ice Caps to melt and deluge California so he may declare Reno the new "Surf Capitol of the USA." I've never had the heart to ask him how the Pacific is going to get over the Sierras. The foothill towns of Grass Valley and Placerville may be better choices, but he seems so determined. But even the prettiest roses have thorns. For that, the Small Stars have Vic Odin, their alleged "manager," who dumped the last act he managed, Last Boy on the Block, to join the Small Stars wagon heading east from Reno to Austin. Odin has his sordid past, but unfortunately, he has an even more sordid present. I've had a few run-ins by phone and in person with the Cockney-nostriled Englishman and he knows exactly where this Nocona boot-scootin' Heeb stands in regards to his attitude that "the Small Stars are lucky to have him." My friends, take it from a guy who's been around music since he was old enough to dirty his diapers- the opposite is true. If it weren't for Roxie Cakes at the band's talent agency in Los Angeles, Odin would have flushed the band down the toilet by now. Still, this band, and even Odin, have a lot of love for their audience. They don't jerk around trying to seem smarter than everyone else. The Small Stars exist for one reason, and one reason only- TO PUT ON A GODDAMN SHOW! And a helluva show it is. They're gonna lov'em in New York. The lamb won't lie down on Broadway for these boys. It'll be offered-up in flaming sacrifice to the G*ds of "the business," and oh the blessings that shall be bestowed. Rocky Magenstein |